May 18, 2010

Just a quick one today. Nothing too involved ;) We don't have a paddling pool at our place for the kids, so I just let them play with water outside in a couple of storage containers and they seem perfectly happy with that. Today was a nice sunny day, so with five kidletts we filled the biggest storage box with water, added a bit of blue food colouring to make it look more oceanish, and then I gave them a load of random craft leftovers to throw in. We had some craft foam shapes that they could cut up or hole punch bits out of and of course those floated.I also gave them some sequins and other random bits to chuck in, like some left over foam beads from the Dollar Tree. They added some sand from our sandbox and that made a kind of cool ocean floor. The littlest girls were really in love with the pretty floating flowers, and they managed to find a host of different things to do with this set up, the favourite of which seemed to be a make believe game of collecting sunken treasure on the ocean floor. I gave them some of the seives we have to sift the floating treasure with too, and they figured out that they could "suck" the floating treasure into the bottles we had in the recycling bin too, which was pretty cool. It wasn't rocket science, but it was enough fun that I thought I'd share it here, because I'm sure people have a lot of random craft bits and pieces knocking around the house, that they just aren't sure what to do with. I'll pour it all through a collinder later and collect all the "treasure" for another go at it again some time.

A fun twist is to freeze tinted water and odds & ends in a large container. Once it's frozen solid, dump the ice block into a larger tub. Let the children drip salt water with eyedroppers, or pour it onto the block from small measuring cups, and the ice will melt away, revealing the treasures hidden inside. This takes a bit of time, but it's fun to check back on periodically to see how the melting progresses!

Small world. I had done the same activity with my 2 yo grandson yesterday, except he added a large digger that scooped up water and beads and dumped them into a container. Boys will be boys! LOVE your blog!

we just did this yesterday! so much fun! my son was making lego submarines and the other kids were playing with the sequins and glitter and tube and tubs. living in fl where it is so hot, we do the ice thing alot too. thanks!

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Fangletronics

The man that I am affiliated with also has a blog. He loves to make stuff with and for our kids as well. His domain is more in the realms of electronics, but he makes other stuff too. Check out his electronic fangling over at Fangletronics.